Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway Co. signed by Elisabeth Mills Reid - 1915 and 1917 dated Autograph Railroad Stock Certificate

Elisabeth Mills Reid (January 6, 1858 – April 29, 1931) was an American philanthropist. Mills was the daughter of Darius Ogden Mills, a wealthy banker and financier who made his initial fortune during the California gold rush. She was born in New York City and raised between northern California and the Hudson Valley in New York. She married the journalist Whitelaw Reid in 1991, with whom she had two children, Ogden Mills Reid and Jean Templeton Ward. Reid and her family lived at 451 Madison Avenue in New York City, in Paris where Whitelaw was the United States Minister to France, and in London where he was the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Elisabeth founded the American Girls' Club in Paris during her time there, and she was a popular society hostess in London. During her life, Reid was an active philanthropist and a volunteer organizer with the American Red Cross.

Its ancestor, the Rock Island and La Salle Railroad Company, was incorporated in Illinois on February 27, 1847, and an amended charter was approved on February 7, 1851, as the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad. Construction began October 1, 1851, in Chicago, and the first train was operated on October 10, 1852, between Chicago and Joliet. Construction continued on through La Salle, and Rock Island was reached on February 22, 1854, becoming the first railroad to connect Chicago with the Mississippi River. In Iowa, the C&RI's incorporators created (on February 5, 1853) the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad Company, to run from Davenport to Council Bluffs, and on November 20, 1855, the first train to operate in Iowa steamed from Davenport to Muscatine. The Mississippi river bridge between Rock Island and Davenport was completed on April 22, 1856. In 1857, Abraham Lincoln represented the Rock Island in an important lawsuit regarding bridges over navigable rivers. The suit had been brought by the owner of a steamboat, which was destroyed by fire after running into the Mississippi river bridge. Lincoln argued that not only was the steamboat at fault in striking the bridge but that bridges across navigable rivers were to the advantage of the country. The M&M was acquired by the C&RI on July 9, 1866, to form the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company. The railroad expanded through construction and acquisitions in the following decades.